


carved a wooden heart

by roundabout



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Casual Intimacy, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Rating May Change, Sheithlentines 2019, season 8? i dont know her
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 08:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17915246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roundabout/pseuds/roundabout
Summary: Keith pulls his pilfered hospital blanket tighter around his shoulders and, without looking, firmly tells Krolia, “Kosmo is off chasing Kolivan, he’ll be back soon enough. I don’t need a minder.”There is a hitch in the approaching footsteps, and a quiet exhale of breath that isn’t quite a laugh. Shiro sits on the cold hard concrete at Keith’s left, ghost of smile curling at the corner of his mouth.“Good thing I’m not one, then.”Or, Keith is stuck in the hospital, juggling the effects of the Komar Mech and a head full of memories from futures that have not come to pass. Shiro helps.





	carved a wooden heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stardropdream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/gifts).



> Happy Sheithlentines!!! 
> 
> Robin, I really hope you enjoy this. I seem to have grabbed on to the 'basically dating' / casual intimacy aspect of your prompt with both hands and ran with it. 
> 
> Thank you for the lovely prompt!

We’re all born to broken people on their most honest day of living  
And since that first breath, we’ll need grace that we’ve never given  
Well, I've been haunted by standard red devils and white ghosts  
It's not only when these eyes are closed  
These lies are ropes that I tie down in my stomach  
But they hold this ship together, tossed like leaves in this weather  
My dreams are sails that I point towards my true north  
Stretched thin over my rib bones, and pray that it gets better  
~ _Wooden Heart_ , Listener

—— 

There is a strange, unsettling quality to having a head full of memories, some not his own, and the hazy, half-formed bones of possibility rattling around between them.

Dawn crawls low over the desert horizon, muted gray bleeding into brilliant reds and oranges and pinks that spill along the skyline like tipped paint. The sun warms Keith’s chilled fingers and wind-chapped nose as it stretches out to touch the hospital roof.

In the distance, the slowly creeping sunrise backlights the dead bones of cities-now-ruins and the jagged, broken monolith of abandoned Galra construction nestled along the cliffs and mountains to the east. The wreckage is ugly, stark against the soft horizon. Keith closes his eyes and turns his face away, trying to focus instead on the growing warmth and the rhythmic croak and buzz of insects as they wake. 

 

(There is a reality, Keith knows, where the monolith rises higher, higher, touching the stars, and the city-now-ruins is ground down into ash and paste that scatters dull gray and wet scarlet, and Keith stands alone in the bombed out husk of the Garrison training yard, too scarred, too old, too tired— )

 

A solid metal clank-thunk of the roof access door clicking open splits the quiet, followed by the crunch of gravel under a booted foot. Keith pulls his pilfered hospital blanket tighter around his shoulders and, without looking, firmly tells Krolia, “Kosmo is off chasing Kolivan, he’ll be back soon enough. I don’t need a minder.”

There is a hitch in the gait, and a quiet exhale of breath that isn’t quite a laugh, before the boots make their way to Keith’s side. Shiro sits on the cold hard concrete at Keith’s left, heedless of the rust-coloured dust that coats the pristine white of his pants. The ghost of a smile half-curls at the corner of his mouth. Shiro plants his impossible hand and leans back to look Keith in the eye. His broad body blocks the worst of the wind kicking up dust from the south. 

“Good thing I’m not one, then.”

Keith huffs a laugh through his nose and kicks his heels. The solid, rhythmic thump of plastic and faux-leather against the hospital ledge is steady and soothing. It’s a nice counterpoint to the way his brain feels off-balance, like he woke up a few degrees off kilter — he hasn’t seen this, he doesn’t have a script, doesn’t quite know what to say. It feels like an age since they’ve just sat together, just talked. 

 

(There was a morning, much like this one, when dawn burned bright on the horizon, broken apart by the warm yellow twinkle of streetlamps and the stark white flood lights around ugly metal scaffolding, where a tall rocket sat patiently waiting. They had sat shoulder to shoulder, watching the sky shift and change above their heads, and had said absolutely nothing at all.)

 

A small smile itches at the corners of Keith’s mouth, and he purses his lips to lock it back for a moment. His brow raises.

“Really, Captain,” he says, dry as tinder, disbelief colouring his tone. Shiro’s epaulettes seem to glow in the half-light, bright and beaming when Keith peeks at him through his lashes. Keith reaches out with a tired hand, tugging the fabric, straightening them. “Are you sure? Word is you’ve upgraded from wrangling Paladins to wrangling a full crew. Sounds like a minder to me.”

Shiro laughs, a single bright peal, and shifts his weight to his flesh hand. His prosthetic hums lightly as it floats before him. His broad fingers flex and bunch. The hand rotates left, and then right, and then makes a full rotation. The middle finger raises a little higher than the others and wiggles in Keith’s direction. 

“It’s Commander, actually,” Shiro tells him. His smile bleeds through into his voice. His massive palm claps Keith’s shoulder, and the weight of it sends Keith tipping sideways, hands flying out for balance. “Since I’m still expected to wrangle Paladins.”

Shiro’s head tips to the side, and he pauses for a beat. He’s cast in warm light, and looks brighter and healthier than he has in too long. His gray eyes are shining, crinkling at the corners with amusement. “Not that I’ve ever really been able to wrangle you.”

Keith snorts, and sways sideways, nudging his elbow into Shiro's ribs below his glowing port. “Is that so? Must have been a ghost who managed to get me into the Garrison, then. Taught me about patience. How to be a leader.”

There is a softness to Shiro’s expression, with something a little dark, and a little indecipherable underneath, when his massive paw of a hand shifts to scuff up through Keith’s tangled mane of hair. The thick silicone fingerpads drag against Keith’s scalp, drawing little lazy circles, before pushing his head away. The blanket slips from around Keith’s shoulders as they bounce with the force of his quiet laughter. 

His body-warm knuckles find Keith’s earlobe and pinch and tug, just light enough to tease and set Keith’s shoulders scrunching up to his ears to protect his neck. “What about grand theft auto, huh? Who taught you that trick?”

Nimble fingers slide through the space where Shiro’s right bicep would be, finding Shiro’s exposed side to jab the space between his ribs. Shiro cracks, snickering, and retreats to bat Keith’s hand away from his flank. His laughter deepens when Keith widens his eyes in a parody of an innocent expression, all wide eyes and raised brows, absolutely ruined by the smirk twisting at his mouth, and says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The sun slips ever higher, casting long shadows across the desert. Somewhere in the distance, an engine starts. The old diesel motor revs, and bodies like dark insects begin to file out from one of the Garrison buildings. A whistle sounds, and the bodies begin to form shapes on the hard packed dirt. 

An easy silence falls into place in the thin space between Shiro and Keith — comfortable and peaceful. Keith feels the knots in his back untense by degrees. The blankets falls a little further as he watches the small group of cadets move, exposing the bare line of Keith’s spine where his hospital gown gaps. Shiro passes a hand behind him and tugs it back up into place. He spends a careful moment smoothing the wrinkles in the fabric, thumb working the knobs of Keith’s neck when Keith's head tips forward to give him access. Thick fingers trace invisible lines where the paladin armor had left mottled bruises stamped into Keith’s skin from the force of Black’s impact with the ground. 

 

(There is a reality, Keith knows, where he tips his chin just so, and Shiro palms the base of Keith’s skull with that big, big hand, and they lean together as if drawn by magnets. Their mouths brush, and there are no sparks, or fireworks, or stars, just the bone-deep sensation of coming home.)

 

Shiro’s hand trails down Keith’s spine as Keith thinks, eyes locked on the scuffed toes of his boots. His palm settles at the small of Keith’s back, and Keith blinks back the false memory with a shiver. He clutches shut the front of his blanket, and sighs. He tips to his left, and his head comes to rest on Shiro’s shoulder. The cuff is warm and hums faintly under Keith’s cheek. 

The sky bleeds blue. Dawn breaks.

—— 

Failure lingers in technicolour at the edges of Keith’s awareness — loitering ever present between the folds of his brainmeat. He and Krolia have spent years watching white light crawl up over the edge of the abyss, have shared every moment of their pasts, have tasted every flavour of triumph and defeat that might come to pass in the immediate future.

Each memory sticks, like charcoal dust in the lines of his fingerprints. A reminder.

When the wardrum of adrenaline is beating a fierce rhythm in his chest, choices are easy. The ones Keith makes are the right ones, because they have to be. The quiet moments, the soft, lulling in-betweens are the ones that settle under Keith’s skin like an itch he can’t scratch. He has a finite number of endings knocking around his head, and an infinite number of branching pathways, a million seemingly inconsequential choices that might set off a domino effect of tiny changes that tip a much larger scale.

They dog him in his downtime in a way they never quite managed on the long road home — as if being weak-kneed and bed bound was the breeding ground they needed to proliferate, and fester. 

Keith sits, cross legged, in a patch of desert sunlight and watches the way it filters in through the sealed hospital window. He thinks about Shiro’s smile, bright and teasing, and the words _patience yields focus_. He thinks about his mother and the hard-won deliberation she wears around her shoulders like a shroud. He trails idle fingers over the rough-hewn bedsheets and traces over his options. 

His mind feels like a broken record of what if’s, stuttering over the same key moments, the same branching paths over, and over, and over — and he hates it. He hates the nagging, pricking presence of anxiety sitting at the back of his brain. Hates the new, ever-present reminder that each choice he makes might be the butterfly that brings down half the universe in a shiver of wings. 

 

(“What’s done is done,” Krolia tells him, late in the night when he can’t sleep without Kosmo’s heavy weight against the line of his spine or the tide of her long, easy breaths or the sweet, keening echo reverberating through the skin-cum-ground under his head. The long, slender needle points of her nails tug through his hair over and over, until her claws stop hitching and his scalp tingles. “And what is done cannot be undone. What must come to pass in this reality will come to pass, whether we like it or not. All we can do is our best.”

It helps, Keith thinks, and it doesn’t.)

—— 

Shiro finds him sitting in the centre of his bed, wrapped in his dust-covered blanket, once again watching motes of dust dance in the strong sunlight filtering through the glass. Keith picks a loose thread at the blanket’s fraying hemline. His fingers itch with the want to feel the cool hilt of a sword between them. He tugs at the loose cotton to keep from tugging at the peeling skin of his softening hands.

Keith can feel the weight of Shiro’s eyes on the back of his neck, heavier the longer Keith sits, facing the window, unmoving. Body too slow, lethargic, Keith feels trapped in amber, like an insect held captive, while the world rotates around him. He breathes evenly through his nose, and tries not to feel envious of Shiro’s energy, or the strength of his shoulders, or the actual clothing on his back. The central air kicks in, chugging a little. Keith suppresses a shiver as the cool, dry air skates across the bare skin of his shoulders where he hadn’t had the strength to lift his arms long enough to tie the gown strings. He tugs the blanket a little tighter around him.

A warm hand smooths down Keith’s unkempt, tugged-on hair, heedless of the way it has gone tangled and slightly stringy at the temples. The thin cot creaks and dips where Shiro takes a seat beside him. Keith watches him from the corner of his eye as Shiro surveys the pockmarked and cratored ground just barely visible over the Garrison boundary walls, looking straight through the golden dust motes above the heater.

“How’s it going on the outside?” Keith asks, like he hasn’t already gotten a full rundown from Krolia, and Kolivan, and every other warm body unfortunate enough to grace the inside of his room since he has woken up. 

Shiro hums, noncommittal, under his breath and pushes aside Keith’s steadily growing mane. He tucks it over Keith’s left shoulder, and tugs at Keith’s biceps until Keith twists, facing away from Shiro, to let Shiro tie neat little bows in his dangling strings. His flesh and bone fingers linger at the knob of Keith’s spine, tapping a neat little rhythm once he's finished. 

“Not bad,” he finally says, then pauses, corrects, “about as well as expected.”

Keith doesn’t even pretend to hide his snort as he leans his full weight back, swaying into Shiro’s space to knock into him, nearly nudging him off the foot of the bed. “Yeah, sure, of course. Everything’s five by five.”

A thick thumb takes advantage of Keith’s relaxed shoulders to navigate the gap in Keith’s blanket, seeking out his arm pit and digging in, wriggling. Keith jerks forward, choking on an aborted laugh, and snaps his arms in close to his sides. He eels toward the head of his bed on his knees. The cot creaks ominously when he twists, lands on his bottom, and pulls the blanket around him like armour. He hunches forward, as if the thin sheet could repel Shiro’s prosthetic. 

“That’s right,” Shiro tells him, dry as dust, letting Keith escape across the mattress only to pinch at him through the fabric, right above his elbow. He slumps back onto his left hand, braced against the mattress, heedless of the way it wrinkles his neatly pressed uniform. “There is absolutely no controversy. Rebuilding without Voltron is going flawlessly, and humanity is taking the immigration of alien rebels into their fractured society with all the grace and poise it has historically accepted every other group of people in need with notable differences. There is no war in Ba Sing Se.”

Blood rushes back into Keith’s legs when he unfolds them. He ignores the way his knees crack from inactivity and the way they explode into painful pins-and-needles in favour of jabbing Shiro’s thigh with his toe. It’s a weak, kitten-soft kick that does nothing but crack Shiro’s bland expression with a grin, so he does it again, and once more for good measure. His toe digs into the exact same spot until Shiro breaks and squirms out of reach. 

“You _nerd_ ,” Keith says, crowing with laughter that takes him entirely by surprise. “You _ancient nerd_.”

There is something eminently self-satisfied in the slant of Shiro’s shoulders, in the tilt of his head and the curve of his grin. Under the artificial light, he looks nearly as tired as Keith feels — dark circles below his eyes, skin a few shades too pale — but here he is the picture of a cat with a canary. Keith shakes his head at him, though it’s out of nostalgia rather than exasperation. Keith blinks, and for a moment, superimposed over Shiro-right-now sits the ghost of Shiro-that-was — equally as tired, equally as smug, but mostly hale and completely whole and impossibly innocent. 

Keith’s throat clicks when he swallows around the sudden lump that appears there. Fond expression frozen on his face, he averts his eyes, and fixes his gaze on the far horizon. Dark dots dance above the cliffs, weaving in and out around the the broken shells of old construction. Earth or Rebel craft, Keith’s can’t tell, but something in him burns as he watches them all the same. Fingers wrap around his bare ankle. Calloused fingertips drag back and forth along the delicate line of his achilles tendon. 

“I want to be back out there.” Keith’s mouth is moving before his brain can catch up to the words, leaking his thoughts like water from a cupped hand, but there is an honesty to them. A frustrated conviction. “I’m useless in here. I need to do _something_.”

A thumb passes over the sole of Keith’s foot, light enough to make him twitch, then hard, dragging from heel to toe and back again, sinking into the tense muscle. “You will,” Shiro tells him, immediately. Keith almost expects him to follow up with a pat answer, but he just shrugs and rolls his neck, not wincing at the ugly crack his spine makes. “The world needs Voltron, yes, but you and Black need to rest. That komar mech did a number on you — on all of you. No one expects any of you to to jump out of your hospital beds and hit the ground running, even if you are the Paladins of Voltron.”

 

(Black’s alarms don’t chirp or wail when her heavy presence at the back of Keith’s mind burns out like a tired candle. They cut out with her console, with the coms, with her lights, leaving the cockpit drenched in darkness, save for the world spinning outside her viewscreen. 

Keith’s hands sweat in his gauntlets, gripping her dead sticks as he tugs at them, tensing his belly and breathing hard to try to keep the blood in his brain as they pull too many g’s. She’s spiralling, turning end over end in the air without a whisper. Darkness chews at the edges of his vision, tunneling it down to pinpricks that flick back and forth between rich, red dirt and jewel blue sky. He grits his teeth and tries to focus, but he’s tired, weary right down the the fibre of his soul, and just keeping his grip on the useless controls is taking every ounce of effort.

There is a reality, Keith knows, where they hit the ground and it’s lights out — where the bad guys win and the good guys lose and Voltron shatters like crystalline glass on a concrete floor. He’s not the praying type, no matter how many orphanages and religious halfway homes he’s passed through like a ghost, but if he could have one wish, just one— )

 

“Haggar is still out there,” Keith says eventually, reaching out to brush his mind against the quiet place where Black is sleeping to shake off that yawning absence he can’t quite force himself to forget. “She’s out there, planning something. I have to _do_ something.”

Beyond the window, a deep indigo begins to gather. Broad strokes blur into gathering clouds, and the light changes. Off colour shadows begin to stretch and grow, barely contained by the buzzing halogen lights overhead. 

“I know,” Shiro tells him as his arm returns to his side and all his fingers clench. His tone is firm, weary, and Keith can’t bite back his wince. “I know exactly what that witch is capable of.”

Darkness creeps into the set of Shiro’s shoulders, ugly and familiar. His jaw is too strong; his eyes the type of half-focused that only comes with remembering. When he smiles, it’s humourless and with teeth. “But trust me, Keith. You can’t help anyone when you’re dead.”

—— 

The hospital curtains are thin, flimsy things: old, sunbleached cream coloured gauze, that barely soften the early morning light. They sit on rusted metal hooks that hitch on old, warped rails, and they consistently catch when pulled. They squeal in protest, shrill and piercing, when yanked open to expose the world outside Keith’s window.

The sound of the curtain is singular, unmistakable. Proverbial bamboo splinters under fingernails, it’s mean, and jarring. The sound of ungreased metal-on-metal cuts straight through Keith’s deepest sleep cycles and sets his teeth on edge. 

Romelle yanks them back, inch by painful, jerky inch with a smile brighter than sunshine on her face. She’s humming something off key and unfamiliar as Keith’s eyes snap open, shorthairs prickling. 

“Ah,” she says, entirely unaffected. She tugs the left panel a little further to the side, a little harder than she should, and Keith squints through the light to watch the thin rail bend ominously. When the metal hooks slide right back down the new slope, she shrugs, and balls the tail into a fat knot that hangs unevenly at the side. Only then, does she tip her head and peek at Keith over her shoulder. “You’re awake! I was starting to wonder if you’d ever wake up. I mean, I know that you’re actually waking up regularly now, but you are very still when you sleep, I’ll have you know, and it’s kind of unsettling.”

Keith, historically, is not the best at people. 

People are loud, and bright, and insistent, and they always, _always_ , want something — no matter how benign. Krolia, regardless of how hard she tries and how much space she gives him, holds a tiny, tender dream of a nuclear family tucked deep behind her ribs. Kolivan wants him to step up, look fear in the face and grab on with two hands, and hold his ground. Shiro — Shiro wants Keith to be something, someone. The person that Shiro believes, and despite bloody knuckles and skinned knees and a record, has always believed, that Keith could be.

Romelle is an anomaly. 

The chair she flings herself bodily into is a rickety thing. Not-quite-maroon that has faded pink at the top where the sun touches it, and frayed brown at the base where it doesn’t. It creaks under the force of her and her enthusiasm, and she pays it no mind. Her booted feet kick up at the base of Keith’s cot as she lounges back, and she splays her fingers. They wiggle, a tiny motion, joints bending a little too far in either direction to be human. 

“Good morning to you too,” he tells her, still groggy and tired, and all the more irritated for it. He’s still not used to this heaviness, this deep and dragging exhaustion, that lingers long after his eyes snap open. She widens her eyes and raises her brows at him, a little expectant gesture that she has, on multiple occasions, insisted is not at all petulant. He frowns at her, a little off kilter despite the fact that she has done this every morning for the past two weeks. He pushes up on his elbow to eye her properly, screwing up his face while his eyes adjust to the light. 

She winks, and settles back into the chair like it's a plush throne, as if they've finished a conversation when Keith hasn’t even pieced together what point she was trying to get across. 

He stares at her, completely at a loss, and has no idea what she wants. She beams at him in return, flashing a hint of kitten fang when she smiles.

Keith flops back, huffing a little. The old synthetic pillow makes a little whumpf of sound when his head hits it. He ignores her pleased aura for a moment and screws up his face. He digs his knuckles into his eyes until all the sleep rubs away from the corners.

“You are all aware,” Keith says, gruff and a little waspish, “that I don't need constant supervision, right?”

“I think it’s nice,” she says, without missing a beat, “that you have people who want to check in on you and make sure you're okay.”

It feels like a pointed statement, despite her deceptively light tone. She sticks one finger straight up in the air and rotates it a little, drawing tight, imaginary circles. She crosses her ankles and rocks her feet back and forth in time with her fingertip. Blonde hair spills out over her shoulders, like spun gold in the morning sunshine. “You must remember, you did just spend the last few spicolian movements looking like a glorified corpse. You were out longer than any of the others, and I was starting to believe you never would wake up. You still look like a corpse, you know, if we're being honest, but at least you're finally an animated one.”

There’s no chastisement in her tone, but Keith feels it nonetheless. He sets his jaw and peels himself off the mattress and up into a sitting position. Nonplussed, he frowns at her, processing. His tone comes out a little deadpan when he replies, “So people feel the need to watch me constantly to make sure I'm okay. And you’re one of them.”

Romelle laughs, light and breezy, seemingly amused and unoffended. Her feet drop from the bedside and she shifts to curl them beneath her. The chair legs scrape obnoxiously over the floor tiles when she scoots it back, an inch at a time, ever deeper into the corner so she can pick up a PADD left behind on the windowsill by Krolia or Kolivan. She readjusts the skirt of her tunic over her trousers and brushes imaginary lint from her lap. Her pointed little nails drum an irregular rhythm on the orange glass. A hint of a smile lurks in her placid expression. Keith watches her settle in for a moment, more bemused than anything else, before shaking his head with a coarse laugh. He turns a little to face her properly, and she pretends to ignore him, drumming on the screen as though totally unfazed by the unfamiliar keyboard. Keith takes the opportunity to scrutinize the curves and angles of her face.

 

(Keith wonders, sometimes, if there is a reality in which they never meet — where he and Krolia and Kosmo had turned left instead of right, where Romelle had spent her day kneeling and tracing the etched lines of her absent family’s names instead of making her way into the forest to do her washing. A reality where they had each followed the exact same script, but a few varga off. 

Then he thinks of her face, soft, rounded features turned hard and gaunt and hollowed as she walks them through her brother’s death. The way her hands trembled, clenched into fists on the tops of her thighs, as she explained in excruciating detail the way Bandor’s face had withered and his body had failed him. 

Then he thinks of the Altean that the Garrison scientists had extracted from the komar mech, and Coran’s tight, pinched expression, and the unsettled stillness of Krolia’s features when he asks about them. 

He stops wondering.)

 

The PADD chimes quietly under Romelle’s ministrations, screen lighting her pale face with a soft orange glow. Her nails click against glass as she navigates the menus. 

“No,” she says at last, corners of her mouth twitching despite her suddenly dry tone. “I just come here for the free food and riveting conversation.”

The tissue that Keith grabs from a box at the bedside table and scrunches in his hand wafts impotently towards her when he pitches it in her direction. Her laughter is high and clear, easy and lilting, like wind chimes on a quiet evening, and it cracks some of the cinderblocks of tight tension sitting in Keith’s chest. Her smile cuts ear to ear, and it makes it easier for Keith to shove past the feeling of dread like heavy weights laced through his guts. The PADD falls to her lap when he throws another balled tissue, and then another for good measure.

Romelle snatches the last one out of the air with a clumsy swipe that has her pitching forward, nearly out of her chair. A sly expression crosses her face, and he squints at her, chin jutting out, daring her without speaking to open her mouth, when the door clicks open. The sudden waft of cool air catches Keith by surprise. Goosebumps bloom up all along his arms, and he freezes in his tracks, ears straining to listen.

The latch clicks when it closes, and it’s followed by light steps and the clatter of claws on cold tile. Shiro steps around the privacy curtain that Keith and Krolia have jury-rigged by the door, with Kosmo clipped tight to his heels. He has two mugs in his hands, and two paper bags of something that smells nothing like hospital breakfast curled in his fingers beneath them. 

The bed creaks when Keith shifts his weight, attention immediately diverted. He can’t quite remember the last time he has eaten something that wasn’t carefully measured, carefully portioned, carefully selected for optimal nutritional value. Keith watches Shiro step closer, juggling the bags, when the smell of fresh coffee hits his nose. His mouth waters.

Shiro’s eyes soften when they land on Keith, and his whole expression warms. His careful posture slumps slightly, and, when shuffling around Kosmo’s excitedly wagging tail proves impossible, he sends his arm across the room to lay two chipped, brimming mugs full of black, black coffee at Keith’s bedside so he can make his way to Keith’s side without fear of spilling. The ceramic clinks against Shiro’s artificial palm when it nudges the mugs further in from the edge. 

The paper bags crinkle, clenched tight in Shiro’s left fist. They are a little rumpled, already stained dark at the bottom with grease, and Shiro keeps lifting his forearm further and further as Kosmo perks his head up higher and higher to nose at their edges, until Shiro abandons the mugs entirely and grabs both bags in his right hand, depositing them on the end table as well. Kosmo chuffs, ruff rippling, and pops out of existence in a flurry of blue motes, only to reappear on the other side of the bed by the food. 

Shiro pins Keith with a helpless look, and Keith, laughing, pats his leg. His single, sharp whistle wavers a little as his breath shakes, but Kosmo gets the gist. He wrinkles his muzzle while his ears tuck down, petulance lining his canine body. Then, Keith blinks, and Kosmo is at the foot of Keith’s bed, heavy weight pinning down his feet. He stares innocently up at Keith, open jaw resting on his paws, tongue lolling out at the front. 

“Hey,” Shiro says, grinning. “We got a fresh shipment of supplies this morning, and someone thought the best way to celebrate was with bacon and eggs. So, I thought I’d smuggle you in some contraband.”

Kosmo squirms up the mattress, claws digging into the sheets and pulling them taut. His belly is still laid low as he noses at the inside of Keith’s thigh. He whines, and Keith laughs, already reaching to scritch the soft fur of his ears. “I bet you helped too.”

Shiro’s grin is a lopsided affair, showing off his teeth and crinkling the edges of his scar. His eyes linger on Keith, bent double and rubbing circles against Kosmo’s scalp. Keith glances up at him, and feels something settle in his ribcage. Shiro’s heels scuff the ground, his gait lazy as he makes his way to the side of Keith’s cot. His flesh hand finds Keith’s shoulder, thick thumb digging into the dip of Keith’s collarbone. 

 

(In universe after universe, Keith knows, he could turn his face and brush his mouth against Shiro’s pulse point; wrap his fingers around Shiro’s wrist, and tug, and Shiro would lean down into Keith’s space, whole body loose and relaxed, to pepper kisses across Keith’s cheeks, and nose, and forehead, and mouth. 

It would be easy, so easy, for those realities to be this reality, but in each not-memory, the outside world beyond the hospital window is amorphous and ill defined, and there is nothing, no guarantee— )

 

Two booted feet thunk against the floor in the corner of the room, and the air shatters like a broken spell. Shiro’s hand slips from Keith’s shoulder, fingertips trailing a light line down Keith’s bicep, before Shiro snaps his arms back down to his sides. Keith blinks, feeling too light on his left side, and digs his hands into Kosmo’s fur for balance. His eyes flicker from the way the high points of Shiro’s cheeks and the tips of his ears flush a delicate pink, and the way Romelle’s brows arch, perfectly pointed without saying a word.

Golden strands tangle and twist between her idle fingers, PADD dismissed and forgotten, as she watches Keith with an expression that can only be classified as shit-eating. His eyes narrow into slits, and Keith can feel his chin tipping down in challenge, like a bull threatening to charge. Her grin only widens, before she winks. 

The sound of her palms clapping down onto her thighs is like thunder in the suddenly quiet room. “Well,” she says, and Keith can’t quite pinpoint what has her sounding so utterly gleeful. He tips his head and frowns, trying to suss her out, but all it does is cause her shoulders to ripple with suppressed laughter as she rises to her feet. She brushes off her knees and straightens the hemline of her tunic, and when she turns to face Shiro, she grins, showing all of her neat, white teeth. “I think I’d like to try this bacon and eggs.”

Shiro’s mouth opens, closes, working silently for a moment before he coughs into his fist. An awkwardness hangs around his shoulders for the blink of an eye before he visibly collects himself. Then he smiles, gesturing over Keith’s head to the twin bags on the nightstand. “We should have plenty to share.”

“That’s terribly kind of you,” she tells him. Her gaze slides back over to Keith, who has absolutely no idea what make of the way she wiggles her ears at him. “But I think I require what Hunk has explained to me is ‘the full experience’.”

Her fingers crook around the words as she emphasizes them, then she raises one shoulder and drops it, the picture of innocence. She whistles, a single fluttering note, and Kosmo’s ears shoot straight up. His lips curl in a wide, doggy grin, and he dematerializes under Keith’s hands, reappearing at Romelle’s side. He leaves long, shaggy blue hairs on her side when he crosses his paws to knock against her. She snickers, stoops, and presses a noisy kiss right between his furry ears. 

A wordless protest vibrates in Keith’s chest, but Kosmo’s feet are clicking towards the door, chasing Romelle’s heels, before he has a chance to string together two words. They disappear behind the strung curtain with a swish of Kosmo’s tail and a wave of Romelle’s hand.

For the length of a heartbeat, Keith and Shiro hesitate, a little pink-cheeked, left staring at one another. Then Keith inhales sharply, and the rich, heady aroma of black coffee and fresh bacon grease hits his nose. His tired brain stutters to a halt as his stomach lets out an audible rumble. 

Huffing a laugh under his breath, Shiro shakes his head and reaches out and slots his palm back over Keith’s shoulder like it belongs there. The weight grounds him, roots him, and Keith finds his lips twitching up into a smile before his tired brain catches up.

“Come on,” Shiro says, voice low and teasing, “let’s get you fed before you pass out again. Old men need their rest.”

Keith jabs his thumb into Shiro’s side. “You’d know, wouldn’t you?”

Birds call to one another, audible even through the thick glass, chasing the thin white clouds that drift across the clear blue sky. The light is steady and warm when Shiro settles into a patch of sun at Keith’s side, ripping into the paper bags and littering them across the bedspread. They sit, shoulder to shoulder with their backs to the door, curling around their contraband plates like children. 

That quiet frustration creeps back in at the edges of Keith’s mind in lockstep with the useless exhaustion that begins growing in his limbs and tugging at his eyelids. The longer they sit, the more heavily Keith finds himself leaning on Shiro, drawing strength from his strong shoulders to keep himself awake.

Keith barely registers it when Shiro gently takes his mostly-finished plate from his lap, and the warped plastic fork from between his limp fingers. He can’t quite track the way Shiro falls out of his orbit to balance their scraps on the table out of sight, or how he goes from mostly-sitting to sprawling out on his back, but Keith is hyper aware of the calloused drag of fingertips over the puckered edge where scar tissue meets the clear skin of his cheek and the warmth of Shiro’s hand when it rests for a tick against Keith’s sternum.

The world fades.

—— 

Keith wonders, sometimes, if his memories haunt Krolia’s quiet moments the way that hers constantly seem to linger at the edges of his.

He sits at the windowsill, resting heavily against the glass, with his chin propped up on one raised knee. His other foot swings idly back and forth, back and forth, in front of the heating vent, as he chews his lips. 

Krolia looks like a figure from a movie, or a childhood dream. There is a paradoxical quality about her as she stands in the centre of his room, tall and strange, familiar yet out of place against the Garrison backdrop. She stands, face deceptively mild, strong-backed under the half-mast halogen lights. 

The world outside is darkening. High up, the sky has turned a deep, purpling indigo, dotted with stars, and satellites, and the carefully choreographed flight patterns of crafts — terrestrial as well as extra. Bands of deep, burnt orange and rusted red extend across the horizon, steadily disappearing as the sun continues to dip further down beyond the horizon to the west. The fading light turns the glass into a dark mirror, and Keith can’t help but watch the way she studies him in the reflection out of the corner of her eye. 

There is a new blade hanging on her hip, one that Keith already recognizes. His brain whispers the providence to him, without ever asking. It has no sheath, hanging bare and open from a loop in her hip sash. The gentle wave of the gleaming knifeblade only hints at the deadly splendor of its wicked, undulating curve when fully extended.

He knows, without asking, the name of its original owner. He knows the shape of her strong shoulders and the slash of her razor sharp smile. He knows the weight of her hand in his own, and the way the vibrations of her heady growl feel against his neck. He knows the intimate curve of her supine spine, and the softness of her body around his fingers, and the taste of the inside of her teeth. 

A face that Keith has never seen in his lifetime hovers in the black space behind his eyelids when he blinks, and Krolia’s hand curls around Keith’s elbow like an apology. She tugs, once, at his bicep, and he lets his lethargic body tip against the line of her side, and doesn’t ask her what happened, or how she came into possession of the blade. 

Its presence at her side says enough.

“Come on, Keith,” she tells him, very quietly, after a moment. Her strong hands tug him off the windowsill and onto his feet, and hold him up like a child, thumbs hitched under his armpits, when he wavers. Keith manages to wrap an arm around her waist when she shifts him to her side, and he appreciates the illusion of strength the action affords him. Krolia bends, and presses a quiet kiss to the crown of Keith’s head, despite the sleep-sweat that has stuck the strands to his scalp. She breathes against his hair for a moment, lingering, just existing, before she straightens and begins to guide them toward the door at the far end of the room. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

The funny thing about extended and extensive memory exchange is that once you’ve shared the most intimate, and exciting, and terrible, and mortifying moments of your life with someone else, boundaries cease to exist. 

The bathroom door has barely clicked shut when Krolia starts tugging at Keith’s gown strings with neat, perfunctory motions. His sloppy ties fall apart under her thick claws, and the fabric falls to the ground in a lazy puddle at his feet. Krolia makes sure he’s braced against the counter before she turns to run the water. He shimmies his underwear down and stumble-steps out of them while she jams the thin skin of her wrist under the tap to test the temperature, as if testing a bottle for an infant.

If the water is a shade too cool when he steps under it, he says nothing. He just braces his forearm against the wall and thumbs the button on the shampoo dispenser, and laughs a little under his breath when Krolia shucks off the outer sashes of her armour and leans in to scoop up the shampoo his hand doesn’t move fast enough to catch. 

He holds his breath, and lets her shove his head under the spray, lets her scrub at his scalp until his thick mane of hair saturates all the way through. She tugs him back out from under the nozzle when she’s satisfied, and he jabs his thumb against the dispenser once more when she huffs, very quietly, on an exhale.

The standard issue shampoo smells sharp, but clean, and reminds Keith of the chemical approximation of a forest: cleaning agents and not-quite-pine. Its scent lingers high in his nose and sits there, itching. The suds drip down his temples, and slip down his forehead and into his eyes, until Krolia swipes at them with her thumb. The steady, circular drag of nails along his scalp is soothing, and when Krolia begins to hum under her breath — a long forgotten song like a half-remembered dream — Keith’s eyes burn with the effort to keep them open. Each and every limb is heavy, leaden. Keith does his best to breathe through it, to lock his knees to keep himself upright and settle most of his weight against the wall, but finds himself drifting regardless. 

As if sensing how close he’s coming to falling asleep standing up, Krolia palms the back of Keith’s neck and drags his head back under the spray without warning. The cool water is a shock against his face, and he sputters, coughing as the water and soap sluices down from the top of his head, stinging his eyes and running into his mouth. 

His hand is uncoordinated, and meets his face with a little more force than intended when he tries to scrub the shampoo from his face. Keith spits out soap, and grinds his wrist into his eye socket, and casts a drowned, sideways glare at Krolia that is just a few shades too tired to be considered baleful. 

His mother’s face is pointedly blank, all traces of amusement or emotion carefully wiped clean from her features, but he holds the sum of her memories like precious gems in the back of his brain — he doesn't need to see it on her face to know when she’s laughing. He squints at her through the curtain of wet hair that falls into his eyes and then shakes his head with force. It nearly sets him off his feet, and the uncomfortably slimy shower tile skids a little under his heels, but it’s worth it for the way she rears back, choking on a laugh. 

“Alright,” she tells him, amusement leaching into her even tone. “Alright.”

 

(The image of his father comes to Keith spontaneously, unbidden. Drenched and kneeling at the edge of an old porcelain bathtub, his eyes are closed and crinkling at the corners from the force of his deep booming laughter. The sound is rich, and hearty, and bounces off the bathroom walls. Keith — the Keith-that-was — gurgles happily at the noise, splayed back in a tiny inflatable chair and gumming on his fist. His chubby legs work, churning the thin layer of water at the bottom, before his foot comes slamming down at just the right angle to send a heavy wave up over the tub’s low edge to soak the already-dampened fabric of his father’s front. 

Krolia watches from the doorway, hovering, with the filed-down needlepoints of her claws tucked back against her wrists. Something aches in her, when she watches Han lean down over the edge, catching a squirming ankle in one big, broad paw, to scruff the shadow of his beard against Keith’s soapy little belly.

The baby squeals, delighted. Krolia steps closer, and closer, until she can feel Han’s soaking flannel against her thigh. Keith’s arms flail, and by happenstance, his tiny hand cups, and hurls a little fistful of water with enough force to catch her in the mouth. 

Krolia reels back, sputtering, and Han slumps fully over the edge of the tub, clothed elbows braced in the water on either side of Keith’s little water chair. His mouth brushes Keith's sudsy shock of black hair, and he laughs, and laughs, and laughs — )

 

Keith’s face is wet, and Krolia moves back in, partially under the spray, to hold his elbow to steady him while he swipes the moisture from his eyes. He coughs again, and tips his head back to catch some of the shower water in his mouth. He swishes it between his teeth, over his tongue, focused on the feeling of it against his cheeks and gums, and spits it down the drain between his feet. 

Once she’s sure he’s steady, Krolia scrubs her palm over Keith’s wet hair one last time before she steps away and pulls out a fresh hospital gown and standard issue pair of underwear from a cupboard near the back of the room. He knows she’s only giving him the illusion of privacy as he quickly washes the parts of his body the shampoo hadn’t touched — she has situated herself by the fogging mirror, mere steps away from the open shower stall — but he appreciates the impression nonetheless. 

It only takes a moment for her to return to his side, when he exhales heavily and slumps against the cold tile wall. His arms feel like broken robot parts, plugged in and useless. Krolia nods to herself in Keith’s periphery, then steps straight into the stall, heedless of the way the water soaks the remaining robe section of her armor. She gathers him up in the crook of her arm, the ghost of a child she once carried, and reaches up to manipulate the head of the shower up and down the line of Keith’s back to wash away the few remaining dregs of soap. As the water slips down his shoulders, Keith finds himself huddling closer to his mother, exhausted and shivering.

His breath comes in short puffs against the crook of her neck as she ushers him out and onto the raggedy bathroom mat. The towel she wraps around him is soft and warm. It’s large enough to fit a full grown galra, and it swamps Keith, taking him by surprise. 

There is a hint of a smile lingering at Krolia’s mouth when she gathers up the excess fabric from around Keith’s shoulders, and flips it up over his head like a hood. With Keith’s hands braced on her broad shoulders, she plants her two palms on either side of Keith’s skull, and scruffs the towel over his dripping hair. Her hands are two shades too rough, and the towel turns the whole word into a blurry edged mess of white and sound. He can tell without needing to glance into the mirror that his hair has turned into a tangled rat’s nest by the time she has finished.

He laughs anyway. He feels young, childish in a way he hasn’t in years, even with the spectre of his dad lingering over his shoulder. The weakness of it, the quiet dependence, should rankle him, but Keith is so worn, and so tired, and his mother is right there, a fulfilled childhood dream, fingers itching to take care of him. His hands bunch in her damp robes for balance and he lets the thought go. Krolia pinches his unmarred cheek between two of her knuckles, claws tucked in against her palm, and looks satisfied with herself. 

When Keith has been satisfactorily mauled and dried, Krolia helps him into her freshly chosen hospital clothes. She lets him lean against the counter and ties his ties for him, and then loops his arm back around her waist to half-walk, half-carry him back to his bed. 

She leaves one of the guard rails down, and perches beside Keith’s pillow at the head of the cot. The world is already fading into the suggestion of lights and sounds when Keith senses a burst of energy near the foot, and Kosmo’s familiar weight settles onto his thighs. 

Krolia hums quietly, a lilting Galra lullaby from his childhood or hers, equally familiar regardless of the origin. Her fingers are careful when they start at the bottom of Keith’s tangled mess of hair and begin to gently tease apart the knots. 

Kosmo snuffles as he settles in. Krolia’s breathing is an easy, even tide. Keith finds himself adrift, asleep before her claws can ever touch the back of his neck.

—— 

Keith wakes slowly, by degrees.

His legs are free, twisted in the sheets where he has turned in his sleep to face the window. When he slips his hands up, he finds the space beside his pillow is empty, long grown cold. Kosmo has disappeared and Krolia is gone, but when he lifts his hand to his face, he finds the sprawl of his hair soft, and dry, and tangle free. 

The sky beyond his window is dark: the deep, black pitch of late night without streetlights, too early for the soft gray of predawn to creep up and obscure the stars. The light that makes its way through the haphazardly closed curtains is weak, thin, and watery — just barely strong enough for Keith to make out the figure slumped in Romelle’s chair, head pillowed on a propped fist like they dropped off while deep in thought. 

Keith takes a moment to stretch, entire body extending as he arches. The tension is a delicious relief. His joints pop and crackle as he rotates his wrists, and his ankles, muscles shivering. He props himself up on his elbow, shuffling deeper under his blankets, and reaches out to touch his fingertips to the inside of Shiro’s wrist. Just a light brush, more the suggestion of pressure, but the skin-to-skin contact has Shiro’s eyes snapping open, startled. 

The corner of Keith’s mouth curls at him, apologetic. He doesn’t ask why Shiro is here, dressed down in his civvies in the dark of the night, long after visiting hours are over. He doesn’t ask about the dark circles like deep bruises that run underneath Shiro’s eyes. Keith doesn’t press, or push. He doesn’t need to know anything more than what Shiro is willing to freely give him. He just traces the planes of Shiro’s face with his eyes, memorizing the cut of Shiro’s jaw and the slope of his nose, and the tiny, nearly invisible scars that Keith’s gaze can only barely detect in the moonlight. Each healed line is thin and light, a little too perfectly straight to have been left by anything other than a dermal regenerator. They litter his temples, his cheeks, his chin and jaw, haphazard crosshatches that blend in to the tone of Shiro’s skin in the daylight. Dozens feather out from the edges of the thick band bisecting the bridge of Shiro’s nose. 

Keith’s fingers itch to reach out, and touch. Instead, he wraps his fingers in a loose ring around Shiro’s thick, flesh-and-bone forearm, and tug at him gently. 

A single brow ticks high up on Shiro’s forehead, but he shakes his head, and a faint, incredulous smile crosses his expression. His body is sluggish, bowed and bent when he rises to his feet. Keith shuffles back on the thin mattress, until his back presses tight to the raised guard rail at the lip, making space. 

Keith drops his hand, but the sense memory of warm skin and soft, fine hair lingers under his fingertips. He rubs them together, and then folds back his sheets, an open invitation. Then he curls one arm beneath his head, and watches his friend through the dark. 

Shiro hesitates for a moment, staring down at Keith with that slight smile and a shadowed, indecipherable expression. For a moment, Keith’s heart stutters to a stop in his chest, and his cheeks burn with heat, but he leaves the blankets where they are, and makes a show of settling back down, as if to sleep. 

 

(A slick, slithering sensation rustles at the back of Keith’s brain, dripping through his not-memories of a million potential futures. Anxiety sweeps cold fingers through each one, searching, searching for a universe where Shiro steps back, begs off, face shuttering off like a house preparing for an unwanted storm. Sharp little teeth find the hazy memories of narrowed eyes and a set mouth, of hands clasped tightly behind backs and a cool, professional distance between co-workers— )

 

Heavy black boots fall to the floor with a clatter of stiff leather and thick plastic. The cot groans in protest and dips down when Shiro slips into the open space. The sheets lift and twist, sending a wash of cool air down Keith’s front, all the way down to his bare knees and shins, and he shivers. His leg hairs rasp as he rubs his calves together to warm himself up, but then Shiro’s knees are knocking against his own, hesitant and a little awkward as Shiro shuffles around, finding a comfortable space.

Keith’s exhale is long, shuddering, and when Shiro’s head comes to rest beside his on the fat little pillow, he can taste Shiro’s sigh on his inhale. Shiro shuffles a little closer, tugging slightly on the blankets, and Keith bites down on the curve of his own lower lip when he realizes that Shiro is trying to keep his ass from hanging off the narrow bed. He uncurls his legs, giving Shiro the room to press in along his front. 

A strong palm settles on the curve of Keith’s hip, warm even through the blankets. The end of Shiro’s prosthetic casts a faint blue light around them when it settles lengthwise across the mattress above their heads. His thick, artificial fingers brush against Keith’s own where they poke out above the pillow. 

Shiro’s thumb traces a line up and down Keith’s hip bone, steady and soothing, and the heat of his body pressed close chases away the chill buzzing at the back of Keith’s mind. On impulse, he reaches up with his free hand and, with the barest hint of pressure, taps his fingertips against Shiro’s cheek. He can feel the way the muscles shift and twitch when Shiro fights to suppress his smile. Shiro squeezes Keith’s hip gently, silent encouragement. 

Softly, carefully, Keith trails his fingers along the roadmap of Shiro’s thin facial scars, until he reaches the hair of his brows. He switches gears, tracing the curve of Shiro’s eye socket, curls his fingers to feel the brush of Shiro’s long, dark lashes against the line of them. He cups Shiro’s cheek, and feeling bold, thumbs the sweet curve of Shiro’s mouth. His stomach swoops when Shiro’s mouth purses, parting slightly, not quite a kiss. 

Keith doesn’t smile — but his heart feels too big, fit to burst in his chest. He’s punch drunk off proximity, off the little points of contact where Shiro’s body connects with his own. There is a hum building beneath his skin, and he feels more energized in this moment than he has been in weeks, despite the late hour and broken sleep. 

 

(There must be a universe, Keith thinks, where _I love you_ is never life-and-death. Where the words drip slow and sweet as honey off of their tongues, and things are always smooth and easy, even then they are not. Where both of their boots stay firmly on the ground, and the galaxy spins on its axis. The universe, and the Empire, continue expanding outward without Voltron’s interference, for better or for worse, Earth’s sun sets and rises, sets and rises, ignorant.

But that universe is not this universe, and Keith has begun to learn that love, like fear, lingers in the in-between moments, in the quiet spaces between all of the blood and the sweat and the tears. It can be a declaration, or a promise, or a gentle, wordless gesture.

It’s a lesson in a foreign language, but Keith is nothing if not a fast learner.)

 

Their legs tangle together below the knee as they settle in. Shiro’s breath fans along Keith’s cheek with every exhale, their noses close enough to brush. The short hair at the base of Shiro’s skull rasps softly under Keith’s bitten-down nails.

They lie together, curled into each other like parentheses in the narrow hospital bed until Shiro’s breath begins to even out and his hand goes slack, slipping up the curve of Keith’s waist to rest there, limp, bridging the narrow gap between their bodies. 

The kiss that Keith presses between Shiro’s brows is an impulse and an indulgence. A soft thing, barely there, that won’t be remembered in the morning, or acknowledged in the harsh light of day. But Shiro leans into it, large body shifting a shade closer, and he makes a delicate noise, high in his throat, in appreciation. 

Fear still lingers in the dark corners of Keith's mind, like a bad taste caught back behind his molars, but it’s distant, faded, when his focus is locked on the temperature of Shiro’s body, and the softness of his skin under Keith’s hands, and the curve of his lashes and the rhythm of his damp, open-mouthed breaths that now sweep across Keith’s collarbone. 

Outside the window, the cold of the night reaches its zenith, but inside, they are safe, and warm, and together. Somehow, before the sky bleeds red, Keith sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

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